All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission of the copyright holder.

All reasonable attempts have been made to trace, clear and credit the copyright holders of the images reproduced in this book. However, if any credits have been inadvertently omitted, the publisher will endeavour to incorporate amendments in future editions.

sonic art and sound design, and is illustrated by diagrams, screengrabs and equipment, which will familiarise the reader with the available tools.

Discusses the processes used to show and display work. Each essay is followed by a selection of photographs of artists’ work. Accompanied by extended captions, it is hoped that these displays will inspire the reader in his or her own work.

6

7

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF SONIC ART & SOUND DESIGN

Introduction

Looking for a definition

Sonic art is a new art form, or rather, forms. As we shall see, it can encompass a wide range of activities, perhaps wider than almost any other art form. It is an unusual case, based upon a medium that has traditionally been regarded as inferior and subservient to other creative or expressive forms.To many composers, sound is simply a means whereby ideas of musical structure and harmony may be expressed: it has little intrinsic value. Likewise to many filmmakers, sound is merely an adjunct to plot and photography and has only a supportive role. However, times have changed and sound now asserts itself as a viable medium in its own right. It can no longer be relegated to a subordinate role, and now demands to be seen as one amongst equals: as a new and distinct medium and potential art form.

Finding the definition of a newly emerged art form is rarely an easy process.There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, the form itself is often unclear: its advocates usually know where the central focus of the subject lies, but its borders – the points at which it contacts and overlaps other more established forms –

are often far harder to define. Secondly, our new form may encounter resistance to the idea of its own very existence.This can come from a number of sources and for a number of reasons.

Often, the new form originates elsewhere, grows as part of a more established one and, after acquiring an identity of its own, now demands to be recognised independently.The parent genre is often reluctant to let its offspring go its own way, maybe believing that the child is not yet grown up enough to survive the rough-and-tumble of the outside world. Perhaps we should be fair to this point of view; in the case of sonic art, some would say that the child is still a rather difficult adolescent and so the parent’s view is understandable even if, from the inside, we believe it to be misguided. Less sympathetic outsiders may take this view further by simply dismissing the fledgling genre as an immature sub-set of something larger and better recognised and by saying that it has no real identity of its own.

Sonic art has encountered all these problems and more besides.The

INTRODUCTION

epiphanous moment when the English composer,Trevor Wishart, declared ‘Electroacoustic Music is dead – long live Sonic Art’ 1over-simplifies the issue by appearing to suggest that sonic art is simply the offspring of a highly specialised musical activity. In itself, this may be true but his statement tells only a small fraction of the whole story. Sonic art covers a huge range of creative activities, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with music save that, like music, the audience experiences the finished work by hearing it. In some respects it would be perfectly reasonable for our difficult child to round upon its parent (music) and to reverse the argument: all music is sonic art but (as we shall see later) not all sonic art is music! (See Simon Emmerson’s comment on p.64.)

These then are just some of the difficulties that we encounter in trying to define what we mean by ‘sonic art’ or ‘sound design’. We can at least make a convenient distinction between these two subjects, however, since we have the existing and well-understood distinctions between visual art and visual design to guide us, and the fact that our work is in

a different medium, makes relatively little difference here (see also p.38).To define sonic art in general is, unfortunately, a far less tractable issue. How, for example, can we distinguish between a ‘conventional’ artwork that happens to make a sound and a work of sound art, and will such a distinction be broadly applicable? I suggested earlier that we might be able to define the centre of our new subject but, since it comes from so many diverse disciplines, it seems to me that sonic art has not one but many centres. So can we give a useful answer at all?

Perhaps the best way to find out about our unruly adolescent is to observe what he does, study the company that he keeps and find out about his background, his parents and siblings. One of the most exciting things about sonic art is the huge size and diversity of the family:

from fine art to performance, from film to interactive installations, from poetry to sculpture and, of course, not forgetting music, all these can be part of the multicultural society that is sonic art.

‘THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN EMPTY SPACE OR AN EMPTY TIME. THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING TO SEE, SOMETHING TO HEAR. IN FACT, TRY AS WE MAY TO MAKE A SILENCE, WE CANNOT.’

JOHN CAGE, ‘SILENCE’

INTRODUCTION

What forms can sonic art take?

When we encounter a piece of sonic art, we may find ourselves in front of one of many types of work. Some will be highly interactive and possibly extremely technology-intensive whereas others will be relatively simple and, in a very broad sense, static. However physically static it may be, sound art cannot by its very nature be passive; with rare exceptions it must actively emit sound or at least have sound (which is itself active by definition) as its conceptual basis. Its active emission of sound can, as we shall see later, create problems in the presentation of the work, but it remains an inescapable aspect of the medium and this distinguishes it in some measure from more traditional art forms.

So does it follow that any artwork that has sound as its main ‘outcome’ will, by definition, be a work of sound art? There are many possible ways in which we can examine this problem and they lead to a variety of conclusions. My personal preference is to take the view that we should define the work by its intentions and by the conceptual thinking that informs it.Thus a work that seeks to communicate with its audience through

sound or be informed by ideas that are based upon sound would be a work of sonic art; by contrast, a work that happens to make sounds as a by-product of another activity (as many kinetic works do) or that has no conceptual reference to sound would not.

This is, of course, a very simple definition and has many potential flaws but will hopefully provide us with a useful starting point from which to consider the context in which the presentation of our work takes place. Most importantly, it begins the process of understanding the way in which an audience will experience and comprehend a type of work that may be, in some ways, physically familiar but which is conceptually new and different from other forms.

Unlike many academic (and even artistic) subjects, there is no fixed ‘syllabus’ for our work. It will become apparent to readers that, while the centre of our subject is clear, its edges are less well defined: sonic art spills over into fine art, music, performance, ecology and many other areas.This means that what you have in your hands is not a textbook in the conventional sense; rather it could be thought of as a catalogue of ideas or a menu of possibilities. Above all, it is an invitation to enter and become part of a new and exciting world – one that youcan help to define.

No single work can hope to provide a comprehensive and detailed approach to a subject that is so diverse and that has so many facets. In this book, we set out to introduce enquiring readers to the subjects of sonic arts and sound design, to show some of the activities that they embrace and, hopefully, to kindle an interest in these new and exciting areas.

10

11

1

Origins and Developments

The relationship between art and technology is a fascinating and many-sided one. For some, the technology merely provides the tools with which to create the art while, for others, it suggests new possibilities and even provides the fundamental inspiration that drives and informs the entire creative process. Most works of sonic art use technologies to a greater or lesser extent although, as we shall see, the widely held presumption that this whole art form is critically dependent upon high technology (and computers in particular) is far from being universally true. What is certain, however, is that the evolution of sonic art as a distinct form has been very closely linked to the development of audio technologies and, in the following section, we will begin to explore this evolving relationship.

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

Timeline

Disk recording invented by Emile Berliner

Francis Bacon writes New Atlantis (see p.21)

Greek amphitheatres designed to maximise audibility (see p.20)

BC

c. 500 BC

c. 500

BC

c. 25 AD

c. 25

AD

1626

1626

1877

1877

c. 25–45000 BC

c. 25–45000

1887

1887

1896

1896

c. 25–45000 BC First probable musical instruments

Roman theatres use acoustic technologies (see p.20)

Marconi patents

the radio

transmitter

The Edison Phonograph – the first recording system (see page 24)

TIMELINE

1

Valdemar Poulsen invents the ‘Telegraphone’ – the first magnetic recorder

Lev Termen (Leo Theremin) develops the Theremin

1898 1898

1906 1906

Talking pictures – premiere of The Jazz Singer (see p.25)

1927 1927

1931 1931

First commercial radio station – KDKA in Pittsburgh USA (see p.25)

1920 1920

1925 1925

Russolo writes the Art of Noises manifesto (see pp.22–23)

1913 1913

1914 1914

Invention of the jukebox

1933 1933

The Edison Multiphone – the forerunner of the jukebox

First concert of Intonarumori in Milan (see p.23)

Electrically recorded disks appear

Abbey Road Studios open

14

15

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

Robert Beyer and Werner Meyer- Eppler propose ‘electronic music’

Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer found the ‘Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète’ (see p.26)

No one knows with any certainty when man became consciously aware of the significance of sound and, more importantly, of the possibility of controlling and using it for other than purely practical purposes.The cupping of the hand behind the ear to focus a distant sound is a gesture so old as to be more-or-less instinctive. It is only a small step from this idea to that of placing the hands in a horn-like form in front of the mouth in order to help project the voice. Here, for the first time, we see a deliberate attempt to influence the sounds that we make and hear. In these instances, the purpose is simple vocal communication but there is substantial evidence to suggest that ancient man used technology to control sound and that he did so for quite complex purposes.We can certainly assume that cultures much older than ours were aware of at least some of the ways in which they could control sound. Indeed, we can still find long-established and specialised forms of vocal communication in remote and mountainous regions. 1

Sound without electricity

Round about the time of the last Ice Age, the first recognisable musical instruments started to appear and people began to make use of the acoustic properties of particular spaces and places. Early instruments seem to have been predominantly based upon natural objects such as conch shells and hollow bones. Several researchers 2have also noted that cave paintings are often to be found in locations where the local acoustics have unusual qualities, and this has led to speculation that these places may have been venues for early forms of multimedia events. 3Howard Rheingold 4goes further and suggests that the combination of cave paintings, unusual acoustics, costume and other practices such as fasting, sleep deprivation, etc. may have been combined to create a low-technology form of virtual reality that could be used as part of rituals, initiation rites and so forth. Whether or not these practices could be considered as ‘art’ is debatable, but we may reasonably think of them as applied art at least and possibly, therefore, a form of design.The question to be considered here is the extent to which our ancestors were aware of how a particular acoustic quality was created and how it could be manipulated. History, unfortunately, is silent on this issue and we must look to later cultures before we begin to see strong evidence of deliberate design of acoustics and, hence, of sound.

We don’t have far to look: the Ancient Greeks were undoubtedly well aware of how to control acoustics and the almost miraculous sonic qualities of their open air theatres testify to their skills. Architecture, however, was by no means the whole story: the Greeks (and later the Romans) also made extensive use of masks that contained horn-like structures or resonating cavities that served to reinforce and project the voice.

The Romans took Greek sound technologies a stage further and provided quite extensive sound systems in many of their theatres.These, of course, were nothing like the sound systems that we would recognise today since even the best Roman technology could not amplify a sound. What it could do, however, was to make the most of the volume available by using resonators (large vases partially filled with water) or by placing actors in front of a membrane that was tightly stretched over a recess in the back wall of the stage. By the first century BC these, and other sound-controlling procedures, were well-established parts of theatre design by architects such as Marcus Vitruvius Pollo. According to Bruce Smith ‘…a Vitruvian theatre could be played by actors as if it were a musical instrument.’ 5What we see here is the first clear evidence of deliberate sound design in the theatre.

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

1

Sound design remained the property of architects for almost the whole of the following millennium.There were some notable exceptions, however, such as the use of surround sound in the composition of works by (amongst others) Monteverdi. Here, composers would write music that was designed to be performed in particular churches with musicians and singers placed, not on stage, but in various locations around the building. Not only did this lend a spatial element to the performance but it also allowed for different musical parts to be accompanied by more or less reverberation: choices more normally exercised in our times by record producers and sound engineers (see also pp.78–79).This is not to suggest, however, that there was a lack of awareness of the potential of sound as an expressive medium in its own right, but rather, the technologies that were needed to allow it to develop simply did not yet exist. For example, in his speculative but prescient 1626 work NewAtlantis,6the English philosopher Francis Bacon describes facilities that not only resemble a modern recording studio but also anticipate the type of work undertaken in the most advanced computer graphics houses:

We have also soundhouses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have harmony

which you have not of quarter sounds and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet.

We represent small sounds as great and deep, likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds.

We have certain helps which, set to ear, do further the hearing greatly; we have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and, as it were, tossing it; and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice, differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have all means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.

1. For example the Silbo language of

the Canaries uses whistling to communicate over long distances in these mountainous islands.

EVERY MANIFESTATION OF OUR LIFE IS ACCOMPANIED BY NOISE. THE NOISE, THEREFORE, IS FAMILIAR TO OUR EAR, AND HAS THE POWER TO CONJURE UP LIFE ITSELF. SOUND, ALIEN TO OUR LIFE, ALWAYS MUSICAL AND A THING UNTO ITSELF, AN OCCASIONAL BUT UNNECESSARY ELEMENT, HAS BECOME TO OUR EARS WHAT AN OVERFAMILIAR FACE IS TO OUR EYES.

NOISE, HOWEVER, REACHING US IN A CONFUSED AND IRREGULAR WAY FROM THE IRREGULAR CONFUSION OF OUR LIFE, NEVER ENTIRELY REVEALS ITSELF TO US, AND KEEPS INNUMERABLE SURPRISES IN RESERVE. WE ARE THEREFORE CERTAIN THAT BY SELECTING, COORDINATING AND DOMINATING ALL NOISES WE WILL ENRICH MEN WITH A NEW AND UNEXPECTED SENSUAL PLEASURE.

ALTHOUGH IT IS CHARACTERISTIC OF NOISE TO RECALL US BRUTALLY TO REAL LIFE, THE ART OF NOISE MUST NOT LIMIT ITSELF TO IMITATIVE REPRODUCTION. IT WILL ACHIEVE ITS MOST EMOTIVE POWER IN THE ACOUSTIC ENJOYMENT, IN ITS OWN RIGHT, THAT THE ARTIST’S INSPIRATION WILL EXTRACT FROM COMBINED NOISES.

LUIGI RUSSOLO, THE ‘ART OF NOISES’ MANIFESTO, 1913

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

1

The Art of Noises

Perhaps one of the most significant developments in sound art and design used relatively simple mechanical technologies: the importance, however, was not so much the technology as the ideas that it expressed.The work of the Futurists, an Italian art movement of the early 1900s, included one of the most famous documents in sonic art:

the Art of Noises 7manifesto of 1913.

Written in the form of a letter from the painter Luigi Russolo to the composer Francesco Pratella, it puts forward the idea that there should be no barriers (or even distinctions) between sounds that have musical or instrumental origins and those that come from the street, from industry or even from warfare. Russolo suggests that all these sound sources should be incorporated into the creation of a new form of music. Interestingly, Russolo does not suggest a new form of art that is based upon sound: what he proposes is simply an extension of existing practices in music (this is an argument that continues to the present day). Sonic art, it seems, is still some way in the future but at least the idea of using non- musical sounds in art has begun to be established and this was acknowledged many years later in the name of one of the first pop bands of the 1980s to make extensive use of sampling technology:

Trevor Horn’s The Art of Noise. 8

In 1913, however, there was no usable technology that would allow the incorporation of real-world sounds into musical performances – clearly a gramophone would be inaudible over the sound of an orchestra – so Russolo created a series of machines known as Intonarumori or Noise Intoners, 9each dedicated to the production of particular types of noises and being given splendidly expressive Italian names such as

Ululator – the howler, Crepitatori – the

cracker and Stropicciatore – the rubber. These instruments saw limited service in a number of concerts but, sadly, none have survived in their original form.

The Intonarumori were revolutionary only in the sense that they, and the ArtofNoises manifesto, argued the case for sound in the broadest sense to be considered in the way normally reserved for music and composers, instruments and the performers that create it.

They were not themselves particularly groundbreaking technologies that opened up new creative possibilities, but they did argue the case for sound to be something considered in its own right and, by so doing, laid the foundation for what later became the disciplines of sonic art and sound design.

7. See opposite.

8. English record producer Trevor

Horn created The Art of Noise (sic) as

part of his own record label, ZTT, itself an allusion to another Futurist work, Bombardamento, a Futurist sound poem of 1914 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, in which the phrase ‘Zang Tumb Tumb’ supposedly represented the sounds of a battle that took place at Adrianopolis in 1912.

9. Excellent audio examples of these

instruments can be found at <www.thereminvox.com/filemanager/ list/12/> accessed 04/02/06.

22

23

MRADIOPHONICS

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

‘INDEED, ONE COULD SAY THAT BY THE LATE 1980S THE AGE OF COMPUTER MUSIC WAS OVER BECAUSE EVERYTHING WAS COMPUTER MUSIC.’

JOEL CHADABE, ‘ELECTRIC SOUND’

Originally defined as sound designed specifically for radio broadcasting, the term has now taken on a broader range of meanings.These include the general area of acousmatics (sound that is heard without reference to its visual origin), narrative (such as radio drama) and some overlapping aspects of soundscape work. Pioneered (in terms of public awareness) in the early 1960s by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in London, this area now stretches significantly beyond broadcasting to include some forms of electroacoustic work, especially those with a narrative element.

The impact of electronics

Serious sound design and, subsequently, sonic art had to await the advent of recording and, more particularly, of electronics following the First World War. The recording process itself is widely acknowledged to have been invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. However, there is some evidence for earlier dates including a charming – if improbable – tale told by the late Hugh Davies: the door of a Chinese temple had a stylus attached to it which, as the door closed, tracked along a groove in the floor.This groove apparently carried a recording which politely thanked the visitor for closing the door! 10

Early ‘acoustic’ recording systems were functional but offered only limited scope as creative tools: they could record and play back but, apart from speeding up and slowing down the sound, they could do very little else.The advent of electronics transformed this situation.The microphone replaced the mechanical horn and recordings were now cut electrically. This immediately opened up a huge range of possibilities: the outputs of multiple microphones could be combined, the signals that they created could be

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

1

processed in all manner of ways and even simple multi-tracking became possible. These technologies joined with the advent of the radio station (KDKA in Pittsburgh USA in 1920) and talking pictures (The Jazz Singer in 1927) and, between them, provided the tools for an explosion of creative possibilities in sound art and design.The ultimate tool, however, was the tape recorder, which made its public debut at the Berlin Radio Fair in 1935. Until the widespread adoption of the computer as a means of recording and transforming sound in the latter years of the twentieth century, this remained the primary resource for creative activities in sound.

However, not all sonic art or sound design activities required the tape recorder. An early example of radiophonic art was the 1938 radio dramatisation of H.G. Wells’

book The War of the Worlds.This caused

widespread panic throughout the United States as a result of its remarkable realism. Material created in a small radio studio was carefully crafted to create the illusion of live location reporting of an alien invasion.The technologies used were simple by modern standards but the

impact was dramatic and the widespread assumption that what was heard was ‘real’ rather than a studio production, only served to demonstrate the relationship between radio and its audience. In doing this, it established at least one important component of the foundations of Mradiophonics: the believability of radio.

The director of this project, Orson Welles, was also a film director and, unusually for the time, made creative use of sound in his movies. Notably, in his 1941 film CitizenKane, he employs a hollow, echoing acoustic in a scene where the main character bemoans the emptiness of his world and, elsewhere, uses several layers of sound simultaneously. Welles continued to develop this interest in film sound in later works such as TheMagnificentAmbersons. Although limited from the perspective of contemporary, effects-laden productions, we see here the beginnings of specifically and creatively designed film sound; a significant step forward from simple recording of dialogue, sound effects and music that had been the norm in film production.

Elsewhere, other artists and composers were undertaking sound-based work. In France, Pierre Schaeffer, a radio engineer, began to experiment with recording as a way of treating sounds and assembling them into new forms. Initially, despite their limitations, Schaeffer used disk recorders and players in his work – a clear precursor of the modern experimental DJ techniques used by artists such as Janek Schaefer, Christian Marclay and others.These experiments led

to a classic work, Étude aux chemins de fer,

which took location recordings of trains and treated and combined them into a work that, although clearly composed, was by no means music in the conventional sense. Schaeffer went on to work with tape recorders, including specially built machines such as the ‘Phonogene’, which allowed tape recordings to be played using a keyboard.This was one of the several ancestors of the modern sampler and, for the first time, allowed non-musical sound sources to be treated in the same way as conventional instruments. However, treating real-world sounds as if they were musical instruments was by no means the only, or indeed the most interesting, approach to working with abstract sound. 11

The specialised machinery developed by Schaeffer and others for handling ‘real’ sounds was paralleled by developments in the creation of sound by electronic means – what we now refer to as sound synthesis.The early works of composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen used equipment from electronics laboratories to generate and transform sounds from scratch and to assemble them into finished compositions.This approach was known as M electronic music.

At this time (the 1950s and early 1960s), synthesisers had yet to be invented and so anyone wanting to work with electronic sounds had to build their own equipment. One of the most notable such inventors was Raymond Scott. A composer who specialised in music for advertising, Scott quickly spotted the ear-catching commercial potential of electronically generated sound and, using the extraordinary variety of equipment that he created through his company, Manhattan Research, became widely known for original and creative sound design for radio and television advertising. 12

An interesting hybrid between the work of Scott and more abstract forms came in

the activities of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.This facility, opened in 1958, was initially developed to meet the demands of makers of radio dramas for special effects but became a substantial organisation in its own right, creating a wide range of specialised musical and other material including, in 1963, the famous theme from the television series Doctor Who (created by Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer) and a radio version of Douglas Adams’ work TheHitchhiker’s

Guide to the Galaxy in 1978.The

Radiophonic Workshop contributed very substantially to the development of an experimental tradition in electroacoustic music in the UK and, up until its closure in 1998, was a significant focus for composers and engineers and other practitioners. It is also important to note that, insofar as much of the work of the Radiophonic Workshop was commissioned to be included in radio and television programmes, it could quite appropriately be regarded (in many cases, at least) as being more sound design than sound art.

The appearance of the commercial synthesiser in the mid-1960s provided a substantial catalyst for new developments. The synthesiser came to public awareness

M ELECTRONIC MUSIC

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

11. Interestingly, Schaeffer called his work ‘Musique Concrète’ meaning that the ‘music’ was to be derived from ‘concrete’ (i.e. real) sources rather than ‘Musique Abstraite’ which was his term for the conventional process of composition followed by performance and (possibly) recording.

12. Excellent audio examples of Raymond Scott’s work can be found at <www.raymondscott.com> and on the double CD set Manhattan Research Inc.

1

‘WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE UNTIDY MESS OF COMMUNICATIONS PRODUCED BY THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES IS THAT NOTHING IS PRESCRIBED, NOTHING IS COMPLETE AND ABOVE ALL THERE IS NO PRETENCE. EVERYTHING IS WILD, EXPERIMENTAL, PRECARIOUS ’ ...

MICHEL JAFFRENNOU, ‘DIGITAL AND VIDEO ART’

Later referred to as ‘electroacoustic music’. Based upon the theoretical researches of Robert Beyer, Herbert Eimert, Werner Meyer-Eppler and others and originating in the works of (amongst others) Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen, this subject includes the composition and realisation of musical works using sound sources that are wholly or partly electronic in origin and, increasingly, sounds derived from ‘real world’ sources that are subsequently treated by a range of electronic processes. Originally based around the use of synthesisers (and their forerunners) and tape recorders, the work is increasingly undertaken using the digital processes available in modern computer systems. Some of these are highly sophisticated and often experimental procedures such as phase vocoding, granulation and convolution.Technical sophistication is often paralleled by advanced compositional forms and procedures including algorithmic and chance processes as well as by more traditional approaches such as serialism. It is the subject of extensive and detailed scholarship and is predominantly (although by no means exclusively) carried out under the aegis of academic institutions.

26

27

M SOUNDSCAPING

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

‘TECHNOLOGY PRECEDES ARTISTIC INVENTION (AS MUCH AS WE ARTISTS WOULD LIKE TO THINK IT’S THE OTHER WAY AROUND!). FIRST CAME THE ELECTRIC GUITAR AND THEN CAME ROCK AND ROLL.’

JOHN ADAMS, ‘AUDIO CULTURE’

A soundscape can be said to be the audible equivalent of a landscape. Put simply, it is a representation of a place or environment through what can be heard rather than what can be seen. Like their photographic equivalents, soundscapes can be realistic and so be directly representational or they can use modifications of (and additions to) the original sounds to create a more subjective sound picture, rather like using a lens to change perspective or a filter to alter colour. Closely related to some aspects of acoustic ecology, the concept of the soundscape emerged in the late 1960s in the form of the World Soundscape Project. Led by R. Murray Schafer and Barry Truax, this research group first documented their own locality through audio recordings in The Vancouver Soundscape (1973) and went on to make extensive documentary recordings in Canada and Europe. Soundscaping is not only a documentary medium but is also used as a compositional form by practitioners such as Hildegard Westerkamp.

through the musical work of Walter (later Wendy) Carlos and his 1968 release Switched-on Bach, which featured classic Bach orchestral works performed exclusively on a Moog synthesiser. A number of similarly inspired works appeared, notably by Isao Tomita who created lush synthesised renditions of works by Claude Debussy, Holst, Mussorgsky, Ravel and Stravinsky.These works and the generally enthusiastic adoption of synthesisers by rock and pop musicians brought new sonic textures to conventional musical forms but, with a few exceptions, did little to expand beyond their confines.

A conspicuous exception to this convention was Carlos’ 1972 work SonicSeasonings, which could only very loosely be described as ‘music’ and was perhaps one of the first widely distributed M soundscape-inspired works. It exploited synthesised sound, field recordings of wildlife and made significant use of technical processes more often found in academic electroacoustic works. SonicSeasonings and works like it began to open up a broader range of possibilities for exploration and creation with sound and by no means were all of these conventionally musical in form.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the development of technology had a good deal to do with the development of sound

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

1

Summary

works. In the field of commercial recording, driven by the huge revenues of record companies and performers, technical development in the 1960s and ’70s was, to say the least, explosive. Studios were transformed into resources, which, for the first time, met the specification of ‘Sound Houses’ as described by Francis Bacon. 13Despite the remarkable power of these systems, their cost placed them beyond the reach of most people and they maintained this position until relatively recently.

The emergence of the personal computer changed all this. From the 1980s, computers began to become smaller and more affordable. From room-sized giants operated by multinational companies, they quickly shrank in both size and cost while increasing rapidly in power and performance. Soon it became possible for private individuals to have in their homes computers vastly more powerful than those used to control the first moon landing in 1969. It was not long before at least some of these began to be used for musical and other sound-based activities. Initially, a good deal of external equipment was required and many found the complexity of this daunting. However, developments continued and by the mid- 1990s it had become possible for almost anyone to use computers to generate, record, manipulate and transform sound in ways limited only by their imagination.

Thus it became possible for anyone with a modest budget to equip themselves to work with sound as a creative and expressive medium and by the turn of the century an explosion of such works had begun. Much of this work remained in conventional – mainly musical – forms but a significant proportion began to move into areas that had previously been restricted to ‘academic’ electroacoustic practice (see also ‘Sound Diffusion’ pp.132–139). A substantial shift in thinking about sound had begun and it was through this shift that sonic art started to become visible as a distinct creative area. However, largely unknown to these new artists, there was already a substantial amount of creative work and scholarship just waiting to be discovered.

13. Bacon, F. (1626) New Atlantis.

28

29

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

A New Form Emerges

Introduction

As we have seen, in the post-war period technical possibilities began to develop at a dramatic rate and so did the thinking of practitioners of sonic art and sound design.These titles were not in use at the time: most creators of this type of work were still referred to as composers, engineers or editors and their work was discussed in appropriate terms.This is perhaps not surprising since many of them came from traditional musical backgrounds and had only opted to work in new and developing areas after a ‘conventional’ training. It follows that a good deal of the work that was created quite rightly belongs under the title of ‘music’. Equally, however, an increasing amount of work simply did not fit in this category and artists sometimes found themselves in an increasingly problematic situation as a result.

Edgard Varèse

One notable example was the work created by French composer Edgard Varèse for the 1958 Brussels Expo (the Brussels Universal Exhibition – the first post-war World Fair, taking the theme ‘A World View – A New Humanism’). His Poeme Électronique was, in many respects, something that we would regard nowadays as an installation work or indeed a work of sonic art rather than a piece of music. It used up to 425 loudspeakers distributed around the Le Corbusier-designed Phillips Pavilion and also included film and slide projections and lighting effects.The sounds were both concrete and electronic in origin and were processed using a range of techniques, many of them developed from the work of Pierre Schaeffer. Critics usually discuss this work in musical terms but this is clearly only part of the story since Varèse himself expressed at least as strong an interest in sound itself as he did in music and, in any event, sound was just one component amongst several that made up the work as a whole.

A NEW FORM EMERGES

1

‘IT CONSISTED OF MOVING COLOURED LIGHTS, IMAGES PROJECTED ON THE WALLS OF THE PAVILION, AND MUSIC. THE MUSIC WAS DISTRIBUTED BY 425 LOUDSPEAKERS; THERE WERE TWENTY AMPLIFIER COMBINATIONS. IT WAS RECORDED ON A THREE-TRACK MAGNETIC TAPE THAT COULD BE VARIED IN INTENSITY AND QUALITY. THE LOUDSPEAKERS WERE MOUNTED IN GROUPS AND IN WHAT IS CALLED ‘SOUND ROUTES’ TO ACHIEVE VARIOUS EFFECTS SUCH AS THAT OF THE MUSIC RUNNING AROUND THE PAVILION, AS WELL AS COMING FROM DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS, REVERBERATIONS ETC. FOR THE FIRST TIME, I HEARD MY MUSIC LITERALLY PROJECTED INTO SPACE.’

EDGARD VARÈSE, DESCRIBING ‘POEME ÉLECTRONIQUE’

30

31

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

Developments in music and art

Steve Reich is normally regarded as a composer who specialises in the musical form known as ‘minimalism’.This relies, in part, on repetition and is now a well- established style. Some of Reich’s early works, however, are clearly not music in the conventional sense. His tape pieces

Come Out (1966) and It’s Gonna Rain

(1965) use the spoken word exclusively. They are also entirely dependent upon a technical process: the slightly out-of-sync repeating of two similar tape loops and their interaction. Apart from the repetition – which creates a rhythmic structure – these works can hardly be regarded as being musical in any meaningful sense. We hear the words repeated over and over and we hear the subtle ways in which they interact with each other and how these interactions change. We also experience the odd feeling that when a word is repeated many times it slowly loses any meaning. After a few minutes, we have no sense that rain is imminent: instead we’re hearing a shifting pattern of sounds that happens to be made from words. Should we regard this as a very extended form of music or, since it depends upon a technical process, is it something else altogether? The problem here is that Reich is traditionally regarded as being a composer. Composers are expected by most people to compose music and, unless they take up painting or

sculpture as a hobby, composers are not expected to create art.

A number of composers had by now expanded the scope of their work beyond the accepted boundaries of composition and performance and some of their work could clearly no longer be simply described as ‘music’ in the conventional sense. Nor could much of it be covered by the rather cautious term M‘experimental music’. One of the main problems was that much of this new work had crossed into other subject areas that were informed by different theories and traditions. Practitioners who were normally thought of as being fine artists encountered much the same problem. However, this group had something of an advantage since, at this time, contemporary art as a whole was in a state of flux and new forms emerged almost daily.

For these artists and their public, the idea of the work taking a new form was far more acceptable than was the case for composers who found themselves in a similar situation. It seems that ‘art’ thinking was, in some respects, more flexible and accommodating than ‘music’ thinking and was prepared to accept the idea that art could be made from (or with) sound that stepped ou tside the

conventions of music.The musical ‘establishment’ was, it seems, rather less flexible in this respect and tended to insist that a work be described in musical, rather than abstract terms, or those used within art in general.This is not to suggest that the art establishment welcomed our fledgling subject as enthusiastically as its musical opposite number had rejected it. One of the issues for many people was the use of technologies and processes that could not be undertaken without them. We have only to consider the techniques of painting and sculpture to realise that the idea that art could be created through the means of technology was not new. However, the nature of some of the technologies that were beginning to be used was wholly different to what had gone before and, for many people, something about this situation simply did not sit comfortably.

In the early 1960s, a number of artists became interested in ‘high’ technology:

sound and video recording systems.This was coupled with the development of a number of new approaches to art, including the idea of interaction between the viewer and the work. Clearly, when one looks at a painting and it stimulates a response, there is a degree of interaction but this process does not affect the picture itself so we have only a very

M EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC

A NEW FORM EMERGES

limited form of interactivity.The idea that the work could respond to and even be controlled by the viewer was a radical one and opened up questions regarding the relationships between artist, artwork and audience. Similarly, art movements such as the UK group Fluxus began to explore the idea of performance as art. Add to this the emergence of readily available technologies and a time of turbulent social change and new forms and practices in art became more-or- less inevitable.

Throughout this period, art experimented with film, video and sound – indeed any medium that became available.The work of established artists such as Nam June Paik crossed over many technologies and forms of practice but still remained fairly and squarely under the overall heading of ‘art’. Even when the technological aspects of the work became broadly accepted, the work retained all the traditional qualities of art: the theories that informed it, the places in which it was exhibited, the way in which critics regarded it and so on were all those that had been associated with traditional forms. Add to this the idea that we could be looking at a wholly new art form and it becomes easy to understand why sonic art has had such a difficult birth and why it still struggles to be truly independent and widely accepted.

1

‘I USE TECHNOLOGY IN ORDER TO HATE IT MORE PROPERLY. I MAKE TECHNOLOGY LOOK RIDICULOUS.’

NAM JUNE PAIK, ‘DIGITAL AND VIDEO ART’

Experimental music is almost impossible to define since what is experimental today can become commonplace tomorrow. For example, in 1975, Brian Eno created a highly experimental work called Discreet Music (see p.39 and pp.78–79).This became the basis for what is now known as ambient music and, in so doing, ceased to be regarded as experimental. Similarly, in the 1960s, Steve Reich created works (such as Come Out and It’s Gonna Rain) using looped sounds – much current popular electronic music is now substantially based upon looped material. Experimental music is perhaps more usefully defined as an approach to composition and performance that uses unconventional techniques. These may take the form of aleatory processes, in which decisions normally taken by the composer are taken by other means such as the laws of mathematical chance or algorithmic processes.

32

33

M CHANCE

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

Chance, as we might use the word, is perhaps a somewhat misleading term since its application to both sonic and visual arts can lead to highly structured and deterministic results. Chance music is otherwise known as aleatory music and may use a range of processes to determine aspects of structure and content that are normally defined directly by the composer. Decisions and choices may be made by mathematical, graphical or statistical methods (amongst others) and, in some instances, may involve the use of computer systems to define structure and content from a set of given rules or algorithms. Notable users of chance have included John Cage, Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis.

John Cage

One of the figures that looms largest in the evolution of sonic art is that of John Cage. Following studies with composer Arnold Schoenberg and artist Marcel Duchamp, it was perhaps inevitable that his work would follow an unconventional path. Cage’s art often used Mchance and ranged freely across many media. He composed music (conventional and otherwise), collaborated with choreographer Merce Cunningham, wrote, painted and created early multimedia events such as Variations V (1965) in which a sound system devised by Cage and sound engineer Billy Klüver interacted with dancers and visual components, including films and video images by Nam June Paik. A significant recognition of the amazingly diverse nature of his work came in the form of the award in 1986 of a very unusual title – Doctor of All the Arts – by the California Institute of Arts.

Despite the extraordinary breadth of his works, Cage remained devoted to sound in all its aspects from his controversial composition 4’ 33” (1952) in which a ‘silence’ lasting four minutes and 33 seconds is created (or ‘performed’) to works for multiple tape recorders (Williams Mix – 1952/3) 14and his radical view that the artist should allow sounds to speak for themselves. 15Despite the fact that he continued to refer to much of his work as being ‘music’, by such works and statements, Cage effectively created the

idea that sound by itself could communicate and, perhaps more importantly (for us at least), that it could be the basis for a distinct art form.These statements are easily made but Cage’s work did much to substantiate them and force sceptics to take the idea seriously:

such works included his early Sonatas

and Interludes for Prepared Piano

(1946–48). In these works, Cage insists that we pay at least as much attention to sound itself as to more conventionally musical considerations like harmony or melody. Although always willing to use technology, 16on this occasion Cage reverts to a far simpler approach, transforming the sound of that most quintessentially ‘musical’ of instruments – the piano. He achieves this by inserting objects (washers, screws, pieces of rubber etc.) at precise positions between the strings of the piano, removing much of the ‘piano-ness’ from the instrument and turning it into something altogether different: an unknown instrument whose interest lies at least as much in its unusual sound as in the music that it plays. Perhaps this is a subtle shift in emphasis but equally one that allows us to focus upon music as something that relies upon sound for its expression rather than the other way round.

Of course, no single individual is ever wholly responsible for the emergence of a new art form and it would be quite wrong

A NEW FORM EMERGES

1

to suggest that sonic art was the invention of John Cage, Edgard Varèse, Steve Reich or any other single artist. What these pioneers did, however, was to establish, in their very different ways, the belief that sound by itself could be art: the very specific ways in which music organises sound are not always wholly necessary and, as Cage suggested, given the opportunity, sound can speak for itself.

Summary

Given the substance of its foundations, it is perhaps hard to understand why it took so long for sonic art to emerge from the shadow of its ancestors.There are a number of possible reasons for this but one major factor is almost certainly the technologies that are often involved. Although (as we shall see later) not all sonic art relies upon high technologies, such methods do tend to be widely used. For as long as these remained relatively exclusive there was little possibility that the work that they made possible would be at all commonplace and therefore that it could be widely accepted.

The sampler, and later the computer, together with the related technologies of the DJ were to change all that. By making the creation of works of sonic art a less elite activity, works began to be created in greater numbers and in a diversity of forms. A new generation of artists now looked for sources and references, theories and ideas upon which to base themselves and their work. Looking back a short time showed little more than the traditional and academic practices of electroacoustic music and fine art. Looking back a whole generation brought to light the work of Cage, Reich, Varèse, Schaeffer and others. Looking back further still, Russolo’s ArtofNoises manifesto (see pp.22–23) was rediscovered, connections were recognised and the emergence of sonic arts as a form in its own right was on the way.

14. Commenting on his score, Cage

explains: ‘This is a score (192 pages) for making music on magnetic tape. Each page has two systems comprising eight lines each.These eight lines are eight tracks of tape and they are pictured full-size so that the score constitutes a pattern for the cutting of tape and its splicing. All recorded sounds are placed in six categories ... Approximately 600 recordings are necessary to make a version of this piece.The composing means were chance operations derived from the I-Ching.’ Cage, J. (1962) Werkverzeichnis. New York: Edition Peters.

‘…Before this happens, centers of experimental music must be established. In these centers, the new materials, oscillators, turntables, generators, means for amplifying small sounds, film phonographs etc., available for use. Composers at work using twentieth-century means for making music. Performances of results. Organisation of sound for extra-musical purposes (theatre, dance, radio, film).’ Quoted in Cox, C & Warner, D. (eds) (2004) Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. New York: Continuum.

34

35

M SOUND DESIGN

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

The creation of sound for a purpose external to itself rather than as a free- standing piece of art. Perhaps best known in relation to film and video but also extensively used for establishing and reinforcing brand identity and for other marketing purposes.The subject covers a wide range of activities and applications from the detailed practices involved in the creation of film soundtracks to the use of sound in support of other media (such as theatre, dance etc.).

Sound Design Appears

Introduction

Sound design has a relationship to sonic arts that is quite similar to that of conventional design to art. Put simply, art seeks to represent and express ideas for their own sake.To do this, it engages with ideas, materials, media and forms of expression and communication. In this respect, it has a good deal in common with design save that design is less concerned with ideas for their own sake but sees them more as being applied to some purpose or other, be it typography, furniture, textiles or architecture. In general, we can say that art may sometimes be abstract but design is almost always concrete.

These statements are, of course, simplifications of the real situation. Here the divisions are often less clear, subjects overlap and simple definitions simply aren’t enough. As in the visual world, so too in the audible one. Sonic art is not a subject that is clearly defined and nor is its relationship to sound design a simple one.There are some areas of activity, however, that are pretty clear. For example, in recent years, the sound designer has become an increasingly important member of the production team of feature films and much of the theory and practice of sound design exists in this realm. That is not to say that sound design is

limited to film and television work – far from it. Designers from other areas are increasingly aware of the usefulness of sound in their work. From airports to the marketing of microprocessors, sound that is designed for a purpose is all around us. At a simple level, muzak is used in supermarkets and shopping malls to help mask unwanted noise and create an overall ambience and in a more detailed application, sonic branding is used to identify and reinforce products.

SOUND DESIGN APPEARS

1

The practice of sound design

The relatively recent emergence of M sound design as a study and a practice might be seen as being similar to the way in which sonic art has emerged. In some respects at least, this has been as a result of the necessary technologies becoming readily available and relatively easy to use, but this view tells only a part of the story. As mentioned earlier, there is reason to believe that ancient human cultures were aware of the usefulness of sound as part of their environment and recorded history is full of support for the continued use of deliberately designed sound through the ages.

One of the most common ways in which sound could be designed or manipulated in the years before electronics was through architecture. One cannot design a structure to amplify sound: the energy that is in the original voice or instrument is all that there is. However, good design can make the most of this by focussing and concentrating the sound, or can control and modify it by reflecting it in certain ways or using resonating objects that vibrate in sympathy. History has many examples of all of these practices, from the use of masks by actors in Ancient Greece, through the stage resonators of Roman theatres (see pp.20–21), to the remarkable acoustic properties of some Mayan structures that modulate sound in ways that we would

normally think only possible by means of modern electronics.

Clearly, all these are examples of sound design having an influence on the actual architecture and construction of a building, so perhaps we can begin to think of sound design as being rather older than we originally imagined. Issues such as acoustics remain important in the design of buildings and spaces but, with the advent of electronics, it has become possible to design and hence to control not only how we hear our environment but also exactly what it is that we hear.This is the role of the sound designer.

Nowhere is the detail of what we hear more important than in film sound. Good sound design can subtly support the structure and storyline of the film, underlay the rhythm of the editing and can provide both contrast and reinforcement at every level. In doing this, the relationship between sound designer and composer is a particularly important one: the decisions of one can dramatically affect the work of the other. Equally important is the relationship between sound and vision.The two may complement each other by saying the same thing and so reinforcing an idea 17orthey may offer a contrast, even a paradox 18(see also pp.84–85).

17.There is an elegant example of this in the Wachowski Brothers film The Matrix (1999). Bullets are shown in flight – in slow motion – with concentric circular shockwaves trailing behind them.The soundtrack includes the sound of real bullets being fired through multiple layers of various materials.This creates a ‘zipping’ sound that perfectly complements the image of the shockwaves.

18.Think here of the scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film The Thirty Nine Steps, in which the landlady discovers a murder. She turns to the camera and opens her mouth to scream but we never hear her: instead, we hear a similar sound – a train whistle – and the image cuts to a train rushing towards us.

36

37

MPSYCHOACOUSTICS

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

‘“AMBIENT MUSIC” MUST BE ABLE TO ACCOMMODATE MANY LEVELS OF LISTENING ATTENTION WITHOUT ENFORCING ONE IN PARTICULAR; IT MUST BE AS IGNORABLE AS IT IS INTERESTING.’

BRIAN ENO, ‘AUDIO CULTURE’

The study of how we hear, psychoacoustics forms an important theoretical input to many aspects of sonic arts and particularly to electroacoustic composition. As the term implies, it includes the study of the hearing process from the perspectives of the acoustic, physical and physiological mechanisms by which we actually detect sound to the psychological and cognitive processes which allow us to decode and comprehend what we hear. Major issues in psychoacoustics include the perception of pitch, timbre and rhythm which in turn informs our understanding of ‘conventional’ and other musical processes such as, for example, harmony and the mathematical set approach upon which serialism is based. Additionally (and particularly for the purposes of sonic arts and sound design), psychoacoustics also includes considerations of the way in which we experience space through the agency of sound and how we locate and identify the sources of sound in the external world.

In recent times, sound design has become an important aspect of film making, gaining a degree of recognition that it has sought since the advent of talking pictures.There is one medium, however, in which sound has always reigned supreme – radio. It is odd, therefore, that with some notable exceptions, sound design for radio has tended to be taken for granted and hardly ever considered in its own right.The obvious exception to this comes in an area where sound design and sonic art overlap – radiophonics.This subject is not particularly clearly defined save that here sound is to be considered in the context of broadcasting. However, it is no longer clear quite what we may mean by the term ‘broadcasting’.Traditionally, it takes the form of ‘one-to-many’ communication but, with the rise of internet broadcasting and the even more recent appearance of ‘podcasting’, this definition is fast becoming doubtful.

As mentioned before, radiophonics can fall into either category: sound design or sonic art. Here, once again, we see a clear distinction between sound that is created to serve an external purpose and a work that is freestanding and that has its own purposes and qualities.The distinction is not always quite so clear, however. For instance, the radiophonic components of

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1978)

formed a crucial part of the overall work to the extent that it would be possible to argue that they were not part of the sound design for the programme but that rather, the whole programme was a work of radiophonic art – difficult. 19

MAMBIENT MUSIC

SOUND DESIGN APPEARS

Summary

In another area, it seems that we may need to regard certain musical forms as sound design. In his early works of Mambient music, Brian Eno put forward the idea that music could assume an environmental role, becoming, as it were, part of the furniture and decor if not of the architecture itself. His work MusicforAirports (1978) acknowledges this in its very title and he suggests that he seeks to use music in much the same way as an interior designer might use colour. 20

These examples are obvious instances of the way in which sound is deliberately designed, as part of other media or in its own right.There are other, less obvious examples of how sound is manipulated to create a particular impression such as this one from a recent review of a Subaru car:

Dyed in the wool Subaru fans may well miss the characteristic woofling engine note made by the unequal length intake manifolds. The STI’s bigger engine, sourced from the Legacy, replaces this with a beefier exhaust sound and lots more low end torque. 21

It is hardly art but it could be design; sound, it seems, forms a larger part of our world than we normally realise. It creates impressions, conjures images, communicates ideas and is often as much a part of a brand identity as a visual logo. 22It follows from this that sound design, in its many forms, has considerable potential and that it will be a significant aspect of many design activities, both now and in the future.

19.

However we consider its final

means of transmission, radiophonic work has one clear quality: the sound itself is all that there is.The source of the sound is hidden from us; at least we are unable to see it although we may be able to guess its nature and some of its qualities.This is a phenomenon that has intrigued people for many years. Indeed, Pythagoras coined the term ‘acousmatic’ to describe a sound whose source is hidden from us, and this term remains widely used (and is equally widely debated through the study of Mpsychoacoustics) today.

20.

‘I believe that we are moving

towards a position of using music and recorded sound with the variety of options that we presently use colour – we might simply use it to “tint” the environment, we might use it “diagrammatically”, we might use it to modify our moods in almost subliminal ways. I predict that the concept of “muzak”, once it sheds its connotations of aural garbage, might enjoy a new (and very fruitful) lease of life.’ Written in 1975 for the now-defunct periodical Street Life and quoted in Toop, D. (1995) Ocean of Sound. London: Serpent’s Tail.

21.

Review of Subaru Impreza 2.5

WRX STI at

<http://uk.cars.yahoo.com> accessed

27/02/06.

22.

Raymond Scott realised this and

created a series of generic ‘audio logos’.There are several examples on the 2 CD set Manhattan Research Inc.

38

39

1

A musical form that was originally designed to be part of the sonic environment rather than to be listened to in its own right.The invention of this form is generally attributed to Brian Eno who in turn describes it as (initially) the outcome of a chance event in which he was forced by circumstances to

‘listen’ to a recording being played at such a low volume as to be virtually inaudible except as part of the overall sonic environment. His first ambient work, Discreet Music, created in 1975 led to

others such as Music for Airports (1978), which was specifically designed to be part of an environmental background.

2

Artists and their Work

In this section we meet five artists whose work falls under the umbrella of sonic art. They have been chosen to demonstrate the remarkably wide scope that sonic art encompasses. We can argue the definition of sonic art from any number of standpoints: some musicians claim it to be a sub-set of music whereas, equally, some fine artists claim it as a category within their subject. Interestingly, all our interview subjects regard themselves as sound artists, despite the widely varying forms of practice in which they are involved and this leads us to conclude that such sure identity may possibly be perceived as a threat by the ‘traditional’ disciplines.

ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK

‘THE SENSE OF HEARING CANNOT BE CLOSED OFF AT WILL. THERE ARE NO EARLIDS. WE ARE CONTINUALLY ABSORBING AND FILTERING THE SOUNDSCAPE. WHEN WE GO TO SLEEP, OUR PERCEPTION OF SOUND IS THE LAST DOOR TO CLOSE AND IT IS THE FIRST TO OPEN WHEN WE WAKE UP. THE EAR’S ONLY PROTECTION IS AN ELABORATE PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISM FOR FILTERING OUT UNDESIRABLE SOUND IN ORDER TO CONCENTRATE ON THE DESIRABLE. THE EYE POINTS OUTWARD AND THE EAR DRAWS INWARD. IT SOAKS UP INFORMATION.’

JANEK SCHAEFER, ‘AUDIO & IMAGE’

ART OR MUSIC ?

2 2 2

Art or Music?

Introduction

Why should traditional disciplines

perceive sonic art as a threat? To

answer this, we need to consider how

different forms define themselves.

of itself. Arguably, the arrival of

‘Elektronishe Musik’ and ‘Musique

Conc ète’ stretched the definition

somewhat but, even here, established

1. Hughes, R. (1991) The Shock of

the New. London:Thames & Hudson.

Traditionally, art meant painting and,

possibly, sculpture.With the turn of

the twentieth century and the

emergence of new forms such as the

‘found objects’ of Kurt Schwitters or

concepts

e e

e

and terminologies

continued

nn

n

to hold sway and even the

most ‘musical’

‘‘

‘

aspects of sonic art

received

vv

v

little acknowledgement as

meaningful

i

ii

activities.

Duchamp’s ‘readymades’, art responded

by changing the definition of what

Both

music and fine art lay claim to

forms could be considered for

sonic

art. Clearly, it is regarded as a

membership. Successively, the

prize to be fought over and, given its

Dadaists, the Futurists and groups

such as Fluxus pushed the membership

qualifications further and further away

from the original simple definitions of

diversity

ss

s

and ‘tradition’ of innovation,

this isss hardly surprising: innovation is

s

increasingly

aa

a

valued in the arts,

especially

ii

i

since older forms seem

art, culminating in the conceptual art

largely to have exhausted their ability

of the end of the century. In this

respect, at least, we can argue the case

to develop new responses. Sonic art re-

establishes

ll

l

many avant-garde qualities

for sonic art as a new form; willing and

and, in the diverse forms that their

able to continue in the established

work

takes, all the artists that we are

experimental approach exemplified by

about t t

to meet undertake the search

the original avant-garde.

Music, the other main claimant to

that is ultimately the focus of all art

forms:

ss to find and present ‘…the

s

necessary

ss

s

metaphors by which a

‘ownership’ of sonic art, proved to be

less flexible, continuing to maintain a

relatively simple and limited definition

radically changing culture could be

explained to its inhabitants.’

ii i

1

4 2

4 3

A RTI ST S AND THEIR W O RK

Vicki Bennett

Biography

Vicki Bennett has been making CDs,

radio and A/V multimedia under the

name People Like Us for 16 years. She

animates and recontextualises found

footage collages with a witty and dark

view of popular culture and a

surrealistic edge, in both pre-recorded

and live settings. Vicki has shown work

at, amongst others:Tate Modern, the

National Film Theatre, Purcell Room,

the ICA, Sydney Opera House,

Pompidou Centre, Sonar in Barcelona

and the Walker Art Center in

Minneapolis. She has also performed

radio sessions for BBC’s John Peel,

Mixing It, and also CBC, KPFA and

does a regular radio show on WFMU,

called ‘DO or DIY’, which, since it

began in 2003, has had over a quarter

of a million Realplayer hits. In July

2005 People Like Us performed a

concert at the National Film Theatre in

London and Vicki has just finished

creating a new live set. People Like Us

released a DVD in late autumn entitled

Story Without End. Funded by the

Sonic Arts Network and comprising

four short films, it addresses the

forever-changing technology of the

twentieth century. Vicki is Artist in

Residence at the BBC Creative

Archive. She is also making an album

in collaboration with Ergo Phizmiz.

Interview

How would you describe your work?

It would of course depend on who I am

describing it to, since I’d be explaining it

in a way that was comprehensible and

relevant to that person. My work has

always involved using found sound and

visual material, developed from

photographic paper collage through to

Photoshop and then moving image (After

Effects) collage, from cut-up tape sounds

and loops through to recontextualised

spoken word and sample collage.This has

manifested as albums, album covers,

downloadable MP3s, short films, live

concerts and radio productions.

Do you feel that it fits into any established category? In this respect, would you describe it as (sound) art or, given the use of other media, does it demand a category of its own?

I have called my work sound art, sonic

art, collage art, plunderphonia, digital art,

avant-garde music, contemporary music,

short films, avant pop

...

actually the list is

quite extensive. It is always collage, and

always contextual. Or rather I always

recontextualise by means of collage.

<www.peoplelikeus.org>

VICKI BENNETT

2

Do you use a consistent way of working or do you regard each successive work as demanding something different every time?

sources dance together, and sometimes it

is annoying not being able to get them to

talk to one another.

I tend to choose two sources to start with

I make all my work on an Apple

PowerBook.The sound is currently

composed using Digidesign® ProTools®,

and the video is made on Adobe After

Effects with final editing in Final Cut Pro

(see pp.92–93).This is also used in

conjunction with Adobe Photoshop and

Image Ready. My work is partly defined

by the systems that I use. For instance I

use plugins.The availability of these

plugins makes a difference to what it

looks and sounds like.

that I can somehow get to communicate

with, or jar with one another.That is the

starting point, and then I start to ‘hang

things on it’. Sometimes the source

material may be very specific, like the

album Stifled Love, where lots of people

were cut off vocally from being able to

express themselves in love songs, or

sometimes it is very nonsensical and

thrives on chaos or disobedience which

leads to it being humorous.

Do you aim your work at a particular

I ought to decide what I want to do, then

find a way to do it but more often than

not, I find what I have and then work with

that. My editing techniques follow a

certain course but each new project is

approached as if I’d never done it before.

The nature of found sound and visual

collage is you can’t tell it what to do

because it already happened. You are part

director and part follower. It is sometimes

a very rewarding and magical process,

watching for instance the way that two

‘market’ or target audience? If so, to what extent do you tailor the work to their ‘expectations’?

I tend to aim it at people like myself

(hence People Like Us).The aim is to

elevate the mind through the various

methods used in making humorous work,

or by other means – using more

conventional methods like emotional

content. I only tailor to my own

expectations, which, I guess, would be

like other people’s.The aim is to pick up

from one point, and land somewhere else.

Or at least go on a journey somewhere,

and be invited to a different world.

I’m interested in the work of female artists in what is predominantly a male genre. Does this concern you and, if so, do you have any thoughts on how some sort of rebalancing might be achieved?

I don’t think it’s necessary to rebalance

males and females in any profession. I

only believe that people need to be

rebalanced when people are suffering as a

result. Females have as much access to

this genre as males, at least in the world

that I live in. I’ve never had a problem, so

I would put a lot of the imbalance down

to males naturally being drawn to making

this kind of art, just as females naturally

do other kinds. I don’t believe in any kind

of discrimination. Another reason why I’m

called People Like Us is to take away

such things as gender from the equation,

and also to be approached and evaluated

by the content of the work, not who or

what I am.

44

45

ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK

Left: ‘We Edit Life’

‘Experimenters in visual perception are

using computers to create weird and random patterns that never occur in real life to find out what and how people see when these patterns are shown to them.’

Image courtesy of People Like Us.

Left: People Like Us performing live

Using samples of audio and visual

footage, Vicki Bennett’s work is

renowned for its witty and ironic take on life.

Image courtesy of People Like Us.

VICKI BENNETT

Right: ‘The Remote Controller’

As a collage, this work can be interpreted and entered at many levels and uses narrative from a public domain film from 1950, a story that still remains relevant 57 years later:

‘In amongst change there are always the very basic fundamental things that make up what it is to be human, the hope to be less isolated and to feel and do more. However, the more we surround ourselves with objects that plug us in, the more we can become disconnected.’

Image courtesy of People Like Us.

Right: ‘Story Without End’

This sound and video piece samples

sonic and visual footage to historically explore ‘the subject of experimentation in the human body and machine interfaces – its successes and pitfalls – in the twentieth century.’

Image courtesy of People Like Us.

2

46

47

A RTI ST S AND THEIR W O RK

Max Eastley

Biography

.

Max Eastley is an internationally

recognised artist whose work combines

kinetic sound sculptures and music

into a unique art form. In 2000 he

exhibited six installations at Sonic

Boom in London and travelled to

Japan to exhibit and perform with

David Toop at ICC Tokyo. He was also a

research fellow at Liverpool John

Moores University.The previous year a

permanent sculpture was installed at

the Devil’s Glen, Co.Wicklow, Ireland.

In 2002 he exhibited at the Festival de

Arte Sonoro, Mexico City, and was

commissioned by the Siobahn Davies

Dance Company to write music for the

dance piece Plants and Ghosts, which

toured the UK. His latest collaboration

with David Toop, Doll Creature, was

released in 2004. Also in that year he

exhibited an installation at Cologne,

Germany. In 2005 he created two

installations in Ireland and an interior

work in Riga, Latvia. In 2006 he

performed with the instrument maker

and musician Victor Gama, for Radio

3’s Mixing It and will be performing

with him, Thomas Köner and Asmus

Tietchens at the London Atlantic

Waves Festival. He is also involved in

the Cape Farewell project, which

brings together science and the arts to

bring awareness of the effect of global

warming on the Arctic environment

<www.capefarewell.com>.

Interview

Could you give a description of your

work?

I’ve always been interested in visual things

and in sound, painting, drawing and

music. It started out as quite a narrow

sense but the third thing I’ve been

absorbed with is movement, which is a

kind of ghost, which unites them.The

work I do uses movement and time as

music does bu t it’s also visual and

sculptural: it uses colour and shape. So

you could call me a sound artist but then

that would be leaving out the visual

because I do use sound in an ar t context:

there are different contexts in which you

use the same techniques and whatever

context that is tends to form the subjec t

of the work.

How would you describe your working methods?

I use the techniques of an architec t

sometimes – of making a mental interior

model that I keep referring to, which is

quite interesting. Quite a lot of composers

work in that way – they see it as a kind of

four-dimensional structure. I find myself

thinking as a composer and a graphic

artist – using drawing to formulate ideas

very quickly. But really all these things

need to be practised so if I’m working

with music I find that I have to do a lot

of music practice. When I’m working with

MAX EASTLEY

2

installations, that’s quite a different way

of working but each one informs the

other: I couldn’t do my kinetic

installations if I didn’t play music.

If it’s an installation, you have to absorb

architectural things: you make a model or

a drawing so you know that the space is

five metres by seven and the ceiling is this

height and you assemble your tools for a

particular kind of work; it’s like a

computer – you have a particular desktop

for each activity.

Is there a structure or an approach to your work that’s common across all these media?

I think I’m quite unusual in that I’ve

managed to keep all these things working

without concentrating on one particular

area. I see what I do as an expanding

horizon: with each work, I get more

height and more horizon appears which

is frightening because the subject is

enormous: it covers musical instruments,

composition, musical forms, architecture.

I don’t see any edge to that horizon.

I did a work in Oxford that used a block

of ice that was manufactured – it was

done in layers so there was a layer of

water that froze into ice and then a layer

of gravel, then another layer of ice, then

another layer of gravel.This was

suspended above metal plates and as the

ice melted, the stones fell – you could see

them hanging on so there was a tension. It

was about climate change and melting

glaciers.

What leads you to use technology in your work and do you sometimes find it intrusive?

I don’t use it all the time but if it’s

necessary I do use it and you find that

after you’ve used it, it’s added another

dimension. In the piece with the ice, the

metal plate was amplified – it had its own

speakers attached so that was a necessary

part of an open-air sculpture. I find that

using amplification is great if it has a

degree where it goes to zero – acoustic

sound – and then up to amplification so

the space is gradually filled. You don’t

need to see what a computer is doing: it’s

like with architecture.To see a really good

piece of architecture you don’t need to see

all the engineering that went into the roof

before you can understand what it’s doing.

In the Cape Farewell TV programme, you were working with quite organic

materials but your music track sounded very electronic.

Some of the sounds were produced by a

monochord – an electroacoustic

instrument – but some of the sounds, the

48

49

bearded seal for instance, recorded

underwater could be mis-interpreted as

electronic sound.The Aolian harp sounds

to us like feedback, but to a listener in the

eighteenth century it could seem like the

voices of angels. Music is defined in a

technological way by recording.This is

something that I found when I first

started to use recordings of the work I do.

If it’s on a CD, it will be heard as music

whereas if you hear them out in the

environment, there’s something else going

on – it’s organic, not fixed or edited.This

was a huge dilemma for me when I first

started recording things because I

thought, ‘this is not the actual work’ but

in a sense, it’s like a photograph of the

work.The definition of music in that way

is ‘if it’s recorded and it has a duration, it

could be called music’. Another definition

is that it comes from inside human beings

or that it comes from something observed

outside. I use that as a working tool

because I can relate to the emotion of

music but I’m also drawn to the external,

the non-human, the inanimate.

Maybe music is the personal touch and

maybe the other things I do are very

impersonal: with the kinetic things, you

can’t look at them and say that you know

[anything about] the personality that

made them but, with the music, you can

sense me as an emotional, feeling person.

So one is animate and the other is

Left: Installation, Cork, Ireland

Image courtesy of Max Eastley.

Right: ‘Interior Landscapes’, Reading, UK

Image courtesy of Max Eastley.

Right: Installation, Nagoya, Japan

Image courtesy of Max Eastley.

Right: Sculpture, Capel Manor, UK

Image courtesy of Max Eastley.

Left: Sculpture, Dartington, UK

Image courtesy of Max Eastley.

Left: Sculpture, The Devil’s Glen, Ireland

Images courtesy of Max Eastley.

MAX EASTLEY

2

inanimate – it’s working with those two

tensions I suppose.

Huxley said ‘An art form is something

that an individual makes which is terribly

difficult to explain to other people’. You

Do you have a working definition of sonic art?

can teach other people to do it but you

can’t actually define it because it’s such

an individual thing.There’s a huge number

That’s terribly difficult isn’t it, because

some people have defined it as something

that uses loudspeakers – I can only say

that I must be a sound artist because I

use sound but I use it in a particular kind

of way: I don’t just use amplified sound.

Someone once said to me ‘wouldn’t it be

great if we didn’t have loudspeakers and

there was just sound and then it would be

pure sound art’, but I think it depends

where your roots are and my foundation

for making installations and things comes

from kinetic art which produced sound as

it moved.

of people that have influenced me, such as

Marcel Duchamp and his definition of the

‘readymade’ and his methods of working

using chance.

I think there’s a huge amount of things

that people can start listening to but

there’s a problem. For instance, if

you want to investigate birdsong or if you

want to investigate radiators, radiators

are very easy to go and put a microphone

against but you can’t say ‘I’ll now go out

and record the birds’, because someone

like Chris Watson has spent vast amounts

of his life refining how you record wildlife.

Are you in the same business as, say, an electroacoustic composer?

David Rothenberg has gone further into

the area of improvising with birds – of

interacting with the environment.That’s

I use electroacoustic methods and

produce work that is improvised and

edited afterwards. I’ve also been called a

sound artist but that confuses people –

it’s that difficult word ‘artist’. Aldous

one way that I see that things could

expand.

The more I draw and paint now, the more

I’m using sound and the textures of

materials – it’s a strange feedback kind of

thing with me. I was always doing this but

quite unconsciously but, after seeing a film

of Picasso drawing, there’s an

extraordinary amount of measuring that

he’s doing by listening – it’s unconscious

but it makes the relationship complex.

I was painting and drawing and I took up

playing the guitar and I couldn’t reconcile

that with the sort of work I was doing so

I stopped it: there was no way those two

things could exist together. Now there’s a

softening: there’s world music and music

influenced by environmental things like

improvising with birds. You have the

technical means to record almost anything

now, when you put that into a programme,

that’s usable as a sculptural material –

like plaster or plastic.These materials are

being used to expand the idea of what

music is. It’s very much a late twentieth-

century idea.

The world has a life of its own so why

don’t we listen to this world?

52

53

A RTI ST S AND THEIR W O RK

Janek Schaefer

Biography

Janek was born inin England to Polish

and Canadian parent r s in 1970.While

studying architectur ct e at the Royal

College of Art, hee recorded the

fragmented noises e of a sound-

activated dictaphone h travelling

overnight throughh the Post Office.That

work, titled Recorded

or

Delivery (1995)

was made for thee ‘Self Storage’

exhibition, curatede by one-time

postman Brian Enon with Artangel.

Since then the multiple u aspects of

sound became hisis focus, resulting in

many releases, installations, s

soundtracks for exhibitions e (for the

Urban Salon), andd concerts using his

self-built/inventedd record players with

found sound collage. a He has

performed, lectured re and exhibited

widely throughout u Europe,

Scandinavia, Northt America, Japan and

Australia, and wonon a Distinction at Ars

Electronica (2004) 4 for his random play

LP Skate.The ‘Triphonic ri Turntable’

(1997) is listed inn the Guinness Book of

Records as the ‘World’s W Most Versatile

Record Player’. HHe plays in duos with

<www.audioh.com>

Philip Jeck (Songs for Europe CD),

Robert Hampson (Comae CD), Radovan

Scasascia (Time and Again CD), and

Stephan Mathieu (Hidden Name CD).

Janek runs his own label (audiOh!

Recordings) and web site

(<www.audioh.com>) as well as

releasing work with FatCat, Asphodel,

Sub Rosa, Hot Air, Diskono, Sirr, Rhiz,

Alluvial, DSP, Room40, Crónica and

Staalplaat. He currently works as a

full-time sound artist/sound designer/

musician/visiting lecturer and

composer from the audiOh! Room

in London.

JANEK SCHAEFER

2

Interview

How would you describe your work?

mental state.The music is purely a

peaceful and calm opposition to war.

I’m a sound artist. My work encompasses

anything that uses sound usually combined

with objects, space, visual art and has a

close relationship with context.

There’s a concept in there, where the

emotional focus is flipped as a reaction to

the context. So the head and the heart are

constantly vying for attention in my work.

The important thing is trying to engineer

Do you see it fitting into an existing category or being on its own?

what I want the end user to understand,

to experience. If I’m doing an installation,

I’m thinking practically about my plugs

My work isn’t just about sound: it’s about

telling stories and about the world around

us, doing installations etc. I don’t just

release it on CD for people to listen to on

headphones – it dabbles in the visual arts

so that half the time I’m a musician and

half the time I’m an artist, but mostly

both together. So I combine categories,

and follow all those that come before me.

I am comfortable being labelled as a

‘Sound Artist’.

Does this imply different mindsets depending upon the project in question?

I have developed an overall approach as

to how I tackle a commission or an idea.

I divide my work into ‘Head’ and ‘Heart’,

my head being concepts and heart being

emotions. I try to balance the two

depending on the project. I’m currently

working on a piece for CD called All

Bombing is Terrorism. Iwantthetrackto

be the opposite of terror, which is often a

and sockets and budgets, but in that

space, do I want them to be scared or

do I want them to think about the idea,

or do I want them to feel happy and

warm and to love life? How important is

it that you understand the concept or how

important is it that you just really enjoy

it without having to think about it too

much? I work from what I want them to

receive as an experience. Ideally it should

work on both levels depending on how

deep you delve into the project.

Do you think that’s something to do with having an architectural background?

Yes, I think it really is. When I started my

architecture degree, I got my first ever A

grade for my first project, because I was

encouraged to do things off my own back,

not just repeat things as in school. In

architecture, we get set a brief, which is a

situation that we have to resolve, and

there are a million things that are involved

54

55

ARTISTS AND THEIR MUSIC

JANEK SCHAEFER

Left: Janek Schaefer performing live

Janek Schaefer often performs using

his self-built/invented record players

combined with objects, space and visual art.

Image courtesy of Janek Schaefer.

2

in solving it, and that’s how I do all my

projects – they are ‘briefs’ to me. I don’t

for example sit down and make music for

leisure: I only do it when I’ve got a

deadline and I’ve got a reason to make it.

All Bombing is Terrorism has taken me

two years of collecting one type of loop

pedal but I hadn’t plugged them all

together until someone said, ‘I want you

to do this track’ and I made it about the

continuous cycles of war – the historical

loop. It gave me a reason to finally use

the five loop pedals.

How did the Triphonic Turntable come about?

I came up with it because I went to see a

concert by Philip Jeck, who was

performing at the RCA one afternoon

alongside Chris Watson who gave a

lecture on field recording, and Panasonic

who were creating raw, electrical,

rhythmic music. Philip showed a piece

called Vinyl Requiem with 180 record

players, all playing at once – a cacophony

kind of orchestra. I was trying to make

music at the time using rhythm boxes and

things because I was into techno and

electronica and DJ-ing in the Art Bar I

helped build at the RCA. I made a little

cassette album with this all-in-one Roland

MC-303 Groove Box, and at the end of it

I’d used all the sounds I liked – so I was

looking for more flexible and cheaper

options to generate sound. I then realised

that vinyl is the most physical way that

you can manipulate sound: it’s tactile, it’s

hands-on, you can access it all at once,

easily. You can slow it down, break it, melt

it: it’s really tangible – it’s just bumps in

a surface you can play with a finger nail.

So I thought there are LPs and 7”s of

every type of sound possible just lying

dormant for 10p in shops all around the

world and I thought, ‘I’ll do the opposite

of Philip’. I didn’t fancy having to drive a

van with 180 turntables around the world

like Philip, to try and start my career: I’ll

build one record player which has got lots

of record players in one unit and you can

change the sound as much as you can all

the way from 1.5 to 77.5rpm. It goes

backwards or forwards and you can play

up to three discs at the same time. It’s a

very visual idea as well – people look at it

and they go ‘A three-armed record player

– what does that sound like?’ So you put

it on a postcard and send it out to other

people who promote gigs, then some of

them write back and you start travelling

and meeting other like-minded people and

I started my career. From the first gig I

did, I got a record deal, then started being

invited around the world and I make a

living from it now full time (as well as

being a full time ManMum).

56

57

ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK

JANEK SCHAEFER

Left: Performing ‘Skate’

In 2004, Janek Schaefer performed Skate to an audience in Linz, Germany.The original concept was to ‘make a record that usurped the deterministic spiral (and the “anti- skate” mechanism) as a way of playing and listening to sound and

vinyl.’This was done by cutting ‘sound- scars’ on to a disc with a gramophone lathe, which forced the stylus to navigate its own random path across the terrain of the physical/sonic diversions.The LP won an ‘Award of Distinction’ at Prix ARS Electronica.

Image courtesy of Janek Schaefer.

Right: Performing with the Triphonic Turntable

Janek Schaefer frequently

performs with his self-designed instrument featuring a three tone arm multi-record, reversible play and vari-speed turntable.

Image courtesy of Janek Schaefer.

58

59

2

ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK

Have you created a monster?

No I don’t think so, it’s more of a beast!

It’s been in my attic now for a few years:

I use my two-arm ‘Twin’ or ‘Dual’ record

players because they are smaller,

transport easier and don’t get broken. It’s

not a monster or a cross to bear, because

I’ve purposefully tried to do a range of

work beyond that idea. I’m a sound artist:

I use anything to do with sound, but it’s

what people know me for. It’s out there as

an icon of who I am so it’s my emblem,

not a monster. I moved on from it as

quickly as possible really to focus on the

music making which is why I built it. I

was also doing installations and works

like Recorded Delivery which was the

first ever piece of sound art that I did, a

great foundation.That’s again just taking

a piece of consumer technology and

putting it through an idea and a process.

Can you say a little about relationships with technology in your work?

Technology is a tool – not the message. I

don’t just say, ‘Hey, this is made in

MAX/MSP – this is cool’; I go, ‘Well you

take a tape recorder and you do this with

it’, or, ‘you take a record player and you

do that with it’. It’s about the idea and

what you achieve with that idea.The

technology sits there as a real prime focus

for many projects, but it’s not about the

technology; it’s about what I do with it.

Do you have a working definition of sonic

art and how do you distinguish it from sound design?

I’m an artist that uses sound – it’s as

simple as that. I do concerts and

installations in art galleries where I use

sound as an environment – I’m a visual

artist who focuses on sound. ‘Sound

Design’ relates to particular projects, it’s

a trade thing – in the world where people

do soundtrack composition, they’re called

sound designers and they put the little bits

of sound here and there. For me sonic art

is usually associated with installation, and

composition I think. When I’m being a

sound designer, I’m designing the sound in

the whole space to illustrate the theme of

the exhibition and thinking about it in a

very ‘designed’ way with my architect

friends. I’m designing the sound for the

show and they’re designing the fixtures

and fittings. But when I do an installation

it’s my artwork that I’m producing, not

fulfilling a brief for a client.

Do you feel that sound art is becoming a more public form?

I think sound art is still a small corner of

the world but it’s global. Audience

JANEK SCHAEFER

2

numbers haven’t necessarily been going up

so I don’t know if it’s achieving more

bums on seats. I’m still very much in a

corner, but I do get the opportunity to

play in big, nice places sometimes. My

album sales haven’t increased but my

commissions have: I don’t have to push

for work so much now which could

indicate it being more widely encouraged.

Look at the number of sound courses that

are popping up: I don’t see that there is a

big market for them to fill. Some of them

will survive and it’s a great education –

you don’t have to become a sound artist. I

trained in architecture, so it’s possible to

use learning skills in other ways.

I’ve been making work with record

players for ten years roughly, and there’s

still only around a dozen well-known

people around the world who are known

for experimental work with record

players. It hasn’t gone up to 120 or

12,000 – it’s still small. People take it a

little more seriously now, especially when

they hear what quality of life I can lead

with all the travelling, and invitations to

make my work etc.

Do you see sound art developing in particular directions?

It’s very broad, and I like that.There are

so many ways to make it. I see that

museums are slowly making progress

towards accepting it as a valid art form,

and the technology has got to a state of

maturity now which I think is fantastically

enabling for all of us.The only reason that

I can do what I do is because home

computers, flights and the Internet all

became affordable exactly when I started.

Digital technology has developed fast, so

now I can make and release albums and

films at home. You can now also do

almost anything with MAX/MSP (see

pp.98–99), so that opens all the doors you

can ever wish for creatively, if you are so

inclined. I am more keen on the simpler

technologies, which comes back to why

did I make a three-armed record player

instead of using laptop? I enjoy the

physical manipulation of sound: you can’t

get at sound inside a computer with your

hands, but with vinyl, when you play it,

you see the sound being played, and you

can innately understand it. So to

conclude, I’d say that sound art is

spreading everywhere at once, like the

moss in my garden, and I love it – the

varying shades give it character.

60

61

A RTI ST S AND THEIR W O RK

Simon Emmerson

Biography

In November 2004 Simon Emmerson

joined De Montfort University as

Professor in Music,Technology and

Innovation from City University,

London. He contributes to the

development of research in MTI as

well as to several undergraduate

modules including leading

Contemporary Composition and

Aesthetics. Recent music commissions

include works for the Smith Quartet,

Inok Paek (kayagum), Philip Sheppard

(electric cello) and Philip Mead (piano)

with the Royal Northern College of

Music Brass Quintet, also purely

electroacoustic pieces for the IMEB

(Bourges) and the GRM (Paris). His

works are available on the Continuum,

Emanem, Mnemosyne (France) and

Isidorart (Canada) labels. He

contributed to and edited The

Language of Electroacoustic Music

(1986, Macmillan – still in print),

Music, Electronic Media and Culture

(2000, Ashgate) and is a contributor to

journals such as Contemporary Music

Review and Journal of New Music

Research. He has recently completed a

book, Living Electroacoustic Music, for

Ashgate and has two solo CDs due

from Sargasso in 2007. He served on

the Board of Sonic Arts Network from

its inception until 2004.

Interview

How would you describe your

u work?

I think of my work as being live electronic

is a term

rather than real time: real time

that came in with computers and I like

working with live musicians. CContrary to

what’s been written over the llast ten years

I don’t believe that humans aare being

it’s

overtaken by technology: I believe

possible that humans can humanise

m

the

ve

the

work. I think

ic

as well

beings are

no

will

technologies so I want to reverse

orthodoxy of the 1990s and bbring humans

back into the centre of our wo

that we can remain live musicians

as electronic musicians. Humana

touchy-feely things whereas ccomputers are

not. I know that haptic technologies

enable us to interface rather bbetter with

computers: the first 25 yearss of computer

music has been through somee absurd

interfaces not built for humann interaction

is

at all and the use of games ttechnology

beginning to open a huge fieldld of

interactive possibilities, but II still think of

that is

the human being as a creaturer

enhanced by the technology, nnot taken

over by it.

Would you agree that electroacoustic

music comes primarily from academic

sources and do you feel thatt this an

issue?

There are a large number of ppeople who

don’t like

think, ‘Oh that’s elitist’. If theye

SIMON EMMERSON

2

the music, that’s fine – it doesn’t worry

me, but there’s a lot of high quality music

being made and I think it should be

valued for what it is. Many of the more

radical artistic developments of the last

20 years end up in colleges and

universities so it’s all one big pool of

possibilities as far as I’m concerned.

Do you think that the public is

becoming more aware of and interested

in sound art?

I’m very happy that the position of sound

in our culture is so strong at the moment.

When I was a student Marshall McLuhan

was telling us that the visual had taken

over. But I think that since that time,

sound and music have moved up steadily

in the public’s appreciation.There’s a lot

more creative interaction between

different kinds of music and I think that’s

fantastically valuable. We’re in a very rich

environment where people come to clubs

to listen to experimental, improvised and

electronic music – it’s not just classic

dance music.There’s a feeling that quite a

lot of popular music themes have run

their course. We all enjoy dancing and

social interaction but we also have a side

that wants to listen to a kind of music

that’s challenging, stimulating, interesting

and different. I think that’s a fantastic

world to live in.

Do you think that visual art has

temporarily exhausted its potential and

that sound is filling the gap?

We’re creatures that love listening to

sound without vision. Every time video

technology has tried to tell us that we

won’t be able to listen to anything

anymore unless it’s got a visual attached

to it, it’s not been true; we love listening

to sound without visual accompaniment.

You can combine the two but you can

listen to sonic art on its own, isolated

from the visual.

Do you think that sonic art exists as a

distinct form? How would you define it?

I think I probably have a different

definition of sonic art than I had 15 or 20

years ago. I personally still focus it

around the interaction of the human with

the technology but artists such as Henri

Chopin, the French concrete poet, need

only a microphone and amplification.

What he does is about the body and the

human voice, it’s not from a music

tradition at all but it’s certainly sonic art.

Of course, sonic art can exist without

electronic technology: a Tinguley

sculpture, for example, is in part sonic art.

I reluctantly include technological

automata although I’m not so interested

in automatic things but how computers

and humans interact. But for me, I’m

62

63

ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK

going to include electronic technology, and

a kind of experimental approach to

human/technology interaction.

A lot of electroacoustic work focuses

upon the processes that are used to

create it. What do you feel about this way

of working?

I don’t compose that way. Although I

have an interest in a wide range of genres

and styles within the sonic arts, and I

have a large CD collection, I also teach

composers and I don’t teach all styles

within the field. I have been deeply

involved with the post-Pierre Schaeffer

tradition of acousmatic music. I believe

Denis Smalley when he says that we drive

composition through the ear, that the ear

perceives, that you decide intuitively how

actually to put things together, even

though I personally don’t often compose

that way – though I still try to judge the

results of what I do by ear. I’m really

interested in how composers put sound

together and I think they don’t always tell

the truth about how they do things:

sometimes they claim that they combine

sounds just by listening (and) that they

don’t have any plans or formal schemes in

their minds – but I find this very difficult

to believe in many cases!

In 1993 I wrote a piece for harpsichord

player Jane Chapman. I don’t require the

listener to have the slightest clue as to

how I put it together but it happens to be

structured through the use of Fibonacci

numbers. I used these particular numbers

to create a kind of organic variety of non-

obvious rhythmic combination. Mozart

tended to write 2, 4, 16, 18 and 32 bar

structures but it was when he disobeyed

those ground plans that the music got

interesting. I use numerical sequences to

generate musical structure because I’m

interested in growth patterns and the way

proportions work. I use schemas,

structures and generating procedures,

which I then moderate with my ears to

make sure they work to my satisfaction.

If a composer uses processes, they need

not be obvious to the listener.The most

‘processed’ contemporary music is the

most popular: minimalism. Minimalism fed

into some aspects of the dance revolution

of the 1980s so those kinds of processes

generate quite a popular surface to the

music. If you take an early piece by Philip

Glass or early Steve Reich (see

pp.32–33), you’ve got processes that

generate repetitive patterns or loops,

which are the direct ancestors of loop

programmes that young musicians are

using these days to create loop-based

dance music. But process can also be used

to generate some fantastic music –

Xenakis’ music has recently been the

subject of remixes by Japanese noise

artists. I think this is because the

statistical ideas he used link directly to

ideas of noise and chaos, which act as

metaphors for urban civilisation.

How do you feel about the relationships

between commercial popular music and

experimental music?

I’m interested in all music: I’m interested

in the phenomenon known as music. I love

it. I think that music is one of the most

extraordinary things that humans do and

I’m fascinated by how it feeds into

contemporary culture as we live it now.

The world of sound to me is total: I’m

very interested in environmental sound,

I’m very interested in soundscape and I’m

very interested in the way that humans

articulate through sound. I’m interested

in how sound signifies and that is a larger

field than just music. So I think that

music is a subset of sonic art and sonic

art is a subset of soundscape and

soundscape is really the world around us,

virtually complete.

SIMON EMMERSON

2

‘I’M INTERESTED IN ALL MUSIC: I’M INTERESTED IN THE PHENOMENON KNOWN AS MUSIC. I LOVE IT. I THINK THAT MUSIC IS ONE OF THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY THINGS THAT HUMANS DO AND I’M FASCINATED BY HOW IT FEEDS INTO CONTEMPORARY CULTURE AS WE LIVE IT NOW.

THE WORLD OF SOUND TO ME IS TOTAL: I’M VERY INTERESTED IN ENVIRONMENTAL SOUND, I’M VERY INTERESTED IN SOUNDSCAPE AND I’M VERY INTERESTED IN THE WAY THAT HUMANS ARTICULATE THROUGH SOUND. I’M INTERESTED IN HOW SOUND SIGNIFIES AND THAT IS A LARGER FIELD THAN JUST MUSIC. SO I THINK THAT MUSIC IS A SUBSET OF SONIC ART AND SONIC ART IS A SUBSET OF SOUNDSCAPE AND SOUNDSCAPE IS REALLY THE WORLD AROUND US, VIRTUALLY COMPLETE.’

SIMON EMMERSON

64

65

A RTI ST S AND THEIR W O RK

Knut Aufermann

Biography

Knut Aufermann, born 1972 in Hagen

(Germany), studied chemistry at the

Universities of Hamburg and Potsdam.

In 1998 he moved to London to study

audio engineering and in 2002 gained a

Master degree in Sonic Arts from

Middlesex University.

From 2002–2005 he was the manager

of Resonance104.4fm, London’s unique

radio art station, for which he has

produced dozens of shows. Besides this

he plays improvised electronic music in

many groups such as Tonic Train, The

Bosch Experience, London Improvisers

Orchestra, duos with Phil Minton and

Lol Coxhill as well as solo and other ad

hoc combinations, with hundreds of

concerts across Europe.

Together with Sarah Washington he

runs the project Mobile Radio

<http://mobile-radio.net>, investigating

alternative means of radio production.

Their works have been broadcast in 12

countries. He is also an active member

of the international Radia network of

independent cultural radio stations

<http://radia.fm>.

In 2004 he curated and played in the

UK tour Feedback: Order from Noise,

featuring a.o. Alvin Lucier and Otomo

Yoshihide. He is currently active

across Europe as a lecturer, musician,

organiser, writer, curator and

consultant. Recent engagements

include workshops for the British

Council, Dutch Art Institute and

Profile Intermedia, consultancy for

Radio Copernicus, lectures at the

Universities of Brighton, Central Saint

Martins and curation for the European

radio territories project.

<http://knut.klingt.org>

2

Left: Micro FM radio transmitter

Knut Aufermann is well known for his work in radio and has now moved into using radio in live performances too.